The Eastern League may even be more confident than Ottawa Mayor Jim Watson that Canada’s capital will be a successful home for a pro baseball franchise seven years after the death of the Triple-A Lynx.

And Watson sounds very confident.

Hours after Watson announced the city had an agreement in principle with U.S. investment banking and brokerage firm Beacon Sports Capital Partners to bring a Double-A team to the Coventry Road stadium for the start of the 2014 season, EL League president Joe McEacharn expressed optimism that more positive news would be revealed by the city after the plan is brought to the finance and economic development committee for consideration in October.

“I think everybody is at a point now that we have what we’d call a win-win-win situation,” McEacharn said in a phone conversation Thursday afternoon from his office in Portland, Maine. “We think it will be a great win for the city of Ottawa, it’ll be a great win for the citizens of Ottawa, it’ll be a win for the Eastern League to move there, and we think the owner of the team will be put in a very positive environment to be successful on all fronts.

“If it’s too good a deal for one side or the other, then it’s doomed for failure. We’re not interested in that. If it’s a fair deal, it meets everyone’s interests.”

McEacharn said it has yet to be decided which franchise from the 12-team league will relocate. He called the matter an “internal issue” and he was not ready to discuss the details. While there had been speculation that Beacon was speaking with Toronto about moving its Double-A affiliate, the Blue Jays announced in May that they had extended their deal with the New Hampshire Fisher Cats through 2014. It was also thought that the Binghamton Mets were another possibility, but they recently extended their affiliation with the New York Mets and signed a new lease through 2016.

In any case, McEacharn said the big-money venture to put a team here will first require “millions of dollars” of upgrades to Ottawa Stadium. The agreement between the city and Beacon suggests its been decided how those expenses will be divvied up.

McEacharn added that the new owner will “hypothetically” pay $15 million for the franchise and incur yearly operating costs of $5-10 million.

“Our more successful teams will draw upwards of 450,000 (fans) per year, averaging somewhere in the vicinity of 6,500 people per night,” said McEacharn. “A team drawing 5,500 people a night, 5,000 a night, is generally successful. In a market like Ottawa, we feel strongly that we can do that. We have no expectations that we’re going to draw 10,000 people a night. I don’t want to throw numbers out off the top of my head, but we sure would like to see 5,000-6,000 people a night. That would be a big success.

“If I thought we were only going to draw 2,000 people a night, we wouldn’t be moving to Ottawa. Two thousand people a night will not get it done.”

Such a commitment from supporters of pro baseball and the city will be well worth the while, added McEacharn.

“I can assure you this: ultimately, the team that decides to move to Ottawa will have a very strong ownership group, a very strong management team, and will make an impression in that community that it has never seen before,” said McEacharn. “I am that confident … and we will require that. They will come in and they will make your community a better place to live. People will see them as a true community asset. They will be in your schools, they will be philanthropic, they will be giving back, they will have educational programs, they will have hospital programs. They will be giving back to little old ladies, to cub scouts, girl scouts and the various sports groups. They’ll have the ability to raise money for charity. It will be a true community asset that will improve all walks of life in your community. It will be far more than just a baseball game.

“We will not allow any ownership group in Ottawa that’s not going to be a first rate, top notch organization.”

“Certainly location is one challenge,” McEacharn said of putting a team in Ottawa. “It adds some travel to our geography. But we can accommodate that. We have worked to the determination that we can make that happen and be successful.

“It’s no secret: one of the challenges is going to be the weather in April. But I’m in Portland, Maine. It’s cold here in April. We have a team in Erie, Pa., and out in Ohio (and) Manchester, New Hampshire. We had a foot of snow the day before opening day in Portland. We can’t control the weather, we can’t control Mother Nature, and we don’t try to. Baseball has been in Ottawa previously. We’ve done our homework there, and for the most part, you had one year where there was significantly more lost games due to weather, but that happens. We had a team this year lose eight games, not because of where they are but because of bad luck, the rain and everything else hit them.

“But for the most part, they got out there and played.”

Only four other Canadian cities have had a team in the Eastern League. At various points in the ‘70s, there was one in Quebec City, Trois-Rivieres and Thetford Mines.

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